Chacko and Mary Thomas. Mary, a nurse, arrived in Edmonton in late 1967, one of the first of a new wave of skilled immigrant to take advantage of Canada's racially-neutral "points system" for immigration. Ian Kucerak / Postmedia

Mary Thomas arrived at Edmonton International Airport on Nov. 11, 1967 — a Remembrance Day she’ll never forget.

She was a 28-year-old nurse from Kerala, in south India. She’d made the long trip here to take a job as an orthopedic nurse at the University of Alberta Hospital. She had no family in Canada, just a few friends from Kerala already working here as nurses.

“When they came to pick us up, I looked out the window and I asked, ‘What happened to all the leaves? All the trees have no leaves!’ ”

It was the first moment of culture shock for a bold young woman who’d left everything she knew behind for a new life in Edmonton.

Thomas was a pioneer, one of the first in a new wave of immigrants who arrived in Alberta in the late 1960s and early 1970s, thanks to dramatic changes in Canadian immigration policy.

Fifty years ago, in 1967, Canada became the first country in the world to adopt a “points” system for immigrants. Previous immigration policy had given preference to immigrants from the United Kingdom, western Europe and other majority-white countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

But under new regulations brought in by the Pearson government during Canada’s centennial year, Canadian immigration offices were no longer supposed to discriminate on the basis of race. The new policy assigned “points” to people, based on things like language fluency, education and job skills. It also made it easier for people already here to sponsor relatives from abroad.

A remarkable shift

The new 1967 immigration rules changed the face of Canada — metaphorically and literally. Thousands of new skilled immigrants, primarily, though not exclusively, from Commonwealth countries such as India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Trinidad, Ghana and Nigeria, stepped through the door as it opened. In so doing, they forever changed the definition of what it meant to be Canadian, setting the stage for a country that embraced multiculturalism — the country we celebrate this July 1 as we mark our sesquicentennial.

Before 1970, according to Statistics Canada data compiled by University of Toronto sociologist Monica Boyd, only nine per cent of immigrants to Canada were members of visible minorities.

At that point, 23 per cent of immigrants came from the United Kingdom, 59 per cent came from other parts of Europe and only six per cent came from Asia.

The period between 1970 and 1979 witnessed a remarkable shift.

Immigration from Asia skyrocketed, with 27 per cent of new arrivals in the period originating from East India or South Asia. Through the 1970s, only 13 per cent of new arrivals came from the U.K. And in that same period, 48 per cent of new immigrants to Canada were members of visible minorities.

The new rules didn’t help everyone. They were geared to recruit professionals: nurses, teachers, doctors, professors, engineers.

A photo of Mary Thomas when she first arrived in Alberta. She came to Edmonton as a young nurse from Kerala, India, in late 1967, the same year Canada moved to an immigration system based on points, not race.Ian Kucerak /
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“You had to be highly educated to meet the points system,” says Boyd.

The points model didn’t cause an immediate change in Canada’s demographic make-up. The real seismic shift didn’t happen, she says, until the early 1980s.

But the policy changes of 1967 were the beginning of an increasingly open-door policy.

“The change to a more open and inclusive immigration policy in 1967 has had significant effects on shaping the social democratic fabric of Canadian society,” says Frank Trovato, a professor of sociology and demography at the University of Alberta.

The 1967 changes, he notes, came at a time when immigration from European countries such as Britain, Italy and Germany was already starting to decline.

That meant a need to recruit more skilled workers and professionals, newcomers from new places.

“The changing origins of immigrants to Alberta, following the 1967 act has helped to increase the ethnic diversity of the province,” he says.

That was especially so in Edmonton and Calgary.

As early as 1973, according to data Trovato compiled, 31.5 per cent of new immigrants to Alberta were arriving from Asia. (By comparison, in that same period, Asian immigrants accounted for 23.4 per cent of all Canadian newcomers.)

By 1991, 56.2 per cent of Alberta’s immigrants came from Asian countries, with only 19 per cent from Europe.

The changes in immigration policy made in 1967, says Trovato, anticipated the passage of the Multiculturalism Act in 1971, which formally redefined Canada as a multicultural country.

“The changes made in 1967 were so transformative for our country, we can see the results of those changes with how diverse our country is,” says Amarjeet Sohi, the member of Parliament for Edmonton-Mill Woods, and federal minister of infrastructure and communities.

Sohi was 17 when he immigrated to Edmonton from the Punjab in 1981, sponsored by an older brother.

Policy-makers, he says, likely couldn’t predict the full ramifications of what they were doing when they adopted the points system and how much it would transform the nation.

“That is the journey of this country,” he says. “It’s a collection of individuals.”

Thomas was part of that journey, one of a large cohort of young women from Kerala who came to Canada to work as nurses. While she worked at the U of A Hospital, many of her nursing friends fanned out across Alberta for jobs in places like Boyle, Manning, Two Hills, Blairmore and Westlock. In many cases, says Thomas, a delegation from the small town would drive to Edmonton to pick up their new community nurse at the airport.

“They were very nice, very hospitable,” she recalls. “They treated us like their own children coming home.”

That help came in handy, since many of the new arrivals had never seen snow before and arrived with no footwear apart from sandals, and no winter coats.

Alberta was looking for people with talent. They rewarded talent.

Other cultural differences took longer to bridge. There was no place in Edmonton to buy the kinds of spices and ingredients the nurses were used to.

“When we came here, everybody in Edmonton ate steak and potatoes, steak and potatoes.”

Eventually, they convinced the Woodward’s food floor to bring in things like curry and basmati rice, and found a health food store in Old Strathcona that stocked such “exotic” ingredients as fresh ginger and chilies.

Two years after she arrived in Edmonton, Thomas sponsored her fiance, Chacko, to join her here. It was a marriage arranged, not by their families, but by their mutual friends. For the ambitious young civil servant to leave his life in India, to come to Alberta to marry a woman he didn’t know was a risk.

“I was scared,” he says with a grin. “Even now, it is a scary thought.”

Chacko Thomas, far left, with a group of immigrants headed for Canada. Changes to Canadian immigration policy in 1967 made it easier for skilled immigrants from India and other Asian countries to come to Canada.Ian Kucerak /
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At first, the only job he could find was as a night security guard at Woodward’s. But eventually, he got a job in the corrections systems, and rose to become warden at the Edmonton Remand Centre. Later, he served as a member of the Edmonton Police Commission.

“We were lucky in many ways,” he says. “Alberta was looking for people with talent. They rewarded talent.”

“Was there racism?” his wife muses. “Maybe. In a subtle way.”

Not every business, she says, wanted a person of colour working with the public in a visible position. Many employers preferred to hire new immigrants to work nights, or to work behind the scenes, rather than in customer-service roles.

But for the most part, she says, people seemed charmed by the novelty of the newcomers, and went out of their way to help them adapt.

“Today, there are agencies to help. There is government assistance,” she says. “In those days, it was not like that. You needed friends to help you.”

Sohi says in many ways, things are easier for immigrants now because those who came before them established support networks.

“You have that cultural support, the religious organizations, community organization,” he says. “That was not as readily available even when I came in 1981.”

Canada still has a points system for immigration — though that’s only one of the streams that help people land here. There also are entry systems for people coming on humanitarian grounds, though family unification or mechanisms like the live-in caregiver program.

Australia formalized its own points system in 1989, followed by New Zealand in 1991. Between 2003 and 2007, the Czech Republic, Singapore, Hong Kong and Denmark implemented their own versions. The United Kingdom launched a comparable system in 2008.

Shirish Chotalia, an Edmonton immigration lawyer, says the 1967 points system drastically changed the concept of immigration in Canada.

“There was such a demand for professionals,“ she says. “It was certainly a valid attempt by the government to bring in some equity.”

Chotalia’s family was a rare exception to the rule prior to 1967. She was born in Ethiopia, but came to Alberta as baby when her parents immigrated to McLennan, about 50 km north of High Prairie, in 1964.

Her father had a Portuguese passport because his home state of Goa was a Portuguese overseas territory. They were the only Indian family in McLennan — something that would change after the points system came into effect.

The points-based model has gone through significant changes since its inception in 1967, says Chotalia, with different categories emphasized depending on Canada’s economic needs.

“It has become rather complex,” she says, “even for immigration lawyers. The forms are constantly changing.”

For example, as of June 2017, applicants for express entry visas could earn extra points for good French skills, added to the official language points already in place, or for having a sibling living in Canada who is a permanent resident or citizen.

“You need to have extremely strong language skills and you need to be young,” she says. “Generally it’s very, very difficult to enter Canada unless you’ve studied or worked here.”

But while immigration policy continues to shift, 1967 was a momentous step towards inclusion.

“I personally feel that we should be proud in Canada of a multicultural, multiracial, multi-religious society and it has come about through immigration,” she says. “We didn’t have that fabric before 1967.”

As she celebrates both Canada’s sesquicentennial and her own 50th anniversary in Edmonton, Mary Thomas can hardly believe how different the country she adopted — and which adopted her — is now from the meat and potatoes place where she first arrived.

“It’s all changed now,” she says. “Now, all ethnic people are everywhere. You see people of all colours everywhere.”

Chacko Thomas takes his wife’s hand, the hand of the brave young woman who staked her claim here, and then brought him. He smiles.

A century of Canadian immigration policy: 1867-1967

1869: Canada passes its first Immigration Act. Eager to encourage settlement in the West, the government imposes very few limitations.

1885: With construction of a coast-to-coast railway complete, Ottawa imposes a “head tax” to discourage Chinese immigration. By 1903, the tax has risen to $500.

1906: A new Immigration Act enacts widespread restrictions on “undesirable” immigrants. The government’s powers to deport or deny entry to those they deem “undesirable” are expanded.

1907: Canada limits the immigration of Japanese men to 400 a year.

1908: The Continuous Journey Regulation bans immigrants who don’t come to Canada directly from their country of origin. This limits immigrants with no direct route to Canada.

A head tax certificate. Beginning in 1885, the Canadian government began imposing a punitive fee on would-be immigrants from China.file /
Postmedia

1919: Ottawa restricts immigration by Doukhobors, Hutterites and Mennonites, citing their pacifism and unwillingness to integrate.

1923: The Chinese Immigration Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, effectively bars all immigration from China. At the same time, immigration from Japan is capped at 150 a year.

1930: In response to the Great Depression, the federal government dramatically curtails all immigration to Canada.

Identification tags secured to their coats, new Canadians wait to board trains in Halifax for other parts of the country. Between the years 1928 to 1971, 1.5 million immigrants passed through Halifax’s Pier 21.CNR COLLECTION /
SNS

1947: The Canadian Citizenship Act redefines Canadians as Canadians, not British subjects. In the same year, the Chinese Exclusion Act is lifted, and Chinese-Canadians are given the right to vote in federal elections.

1951: The Canadian government introduces modest quotas to allow limited immigration from India, Pakistan and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

1962: The Diefenbaker government amends immigration policy, to assess applicants based on skill, irrespective of ethnicity, race or country of origin. However, a clause in the new regulations says only immigrants from specific “desirable” countries can sponsor adult relatives.

1967: New immigration regulations establish an objective points system, with applicants awarded points based on things such as education, language fluency and job skills.

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